


conspiracy of silence

by SeventhStrife



Series: ornaments [2]
Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Developing Relationship, Don't copy to another site, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jake Muller Loves Sherry Birkin, Jake Muller's Potty Mouth, Jake's POV, Past Abuse, Rating and Tags updated with each chapter, Sherry "I'm Fine" Birkin, Stockholm Syndrome, Unethical Experimentation, Weekly Updates, Wingfic, no beta we go to turbo hell like angels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:21:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28439775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeventhStrife/pseuds/SeventhStrife
Summary: After the last few days, Jake and Sherry deserve a break, right? Time to relax, sleep in, maybe even settle into the new relationship they'd stumbled into during that fateful mission in Germany.Yeah, that's what Jake thought, but bureaucracy waited for no man, apparently, and neither did the bullshit that came with it.And in Sherry's case, it was some Supreme Bullshit.
Relationships: Sherry Birkin/Jake Muller
Series: ornaments [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083173
Comments: 45
Kudos: 28





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The entire reason for the existence of this sequel is wholly [Beastie's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandpiperBand/pseuds/SandpiperBand) fault, so you guys have her to thank lol! Thank you so much for being an amazing cheerleader/enabler and absolutely plaguing me with Shake feelings at all hours of the day. I'm truly grateful. 🥰
> 
> If you love RE, wingfic, and lesbians (and who doesn't???) go check out her fic and scream into the void with me over how amazing it is!!!!

The moment their plane lands, Jake wants nothing more than to eat his weight in something hot and greasy and crash—preferably for the next few _weeks_. But the suits he's working for these days don't give a shit about the fact that Jake's had one of the most emotionally draining weekends of his life and expect him _and_ Sherry back at D.S.O. headquarters asap.

"This is fuckin' bullshit," Jake grouses, barely lowering his voice. They pass more than a few government stooges on their way to the debriefing room and Jake eyes them all with wary distrust. No matter what his badge says these days, he'll never be at ease around these types.

_The things I do for love..._

At his side, Sherry elbows him, _hard._ He smirks, and when Sherry shoots him a quick, exasperated look, he takes the opportunity to preen. His wings rise a bit further behind his back, stretch out a few inches wider, and he savors the way Sherry's cheeks darken. A few people double-take at the sight of him presenting so obviously, and in _public,_ but Jake couldn't care less, not when it puts _that_ expression on Sherry's face.

There's the brush of Sherry's fingers, and then she takes his hand long enough to give him an affectionate squeeze.

"You're very pretty," she tells Jake sincerely, tone doting. Even if she's being condescending, Jake still revels in the praise, in the genuine happiness he can see shining plain in her eyes. "Now, behave."

The coy curl of her lips makes his heart feel like it'll beat straight out of his chest. 

_That's my fucking girlfriend,_ he brags, smug.

The only thing that would make it better would be if Sherry returned the gesture—but her wings are bound, of course. He's not sure the day will _ever_ come when she'll be comfortable enough to have them out in public, but he's content to be one of the few who gets to see them.

Hell, he's lucky he gets _Sherry_ at all. When he'd woken up to the sight of her in his bed, her soft, warm hands on his shoulders, hair mussed with sleep and smile small and sweet and all for him—he'd been hard-pressed not to pinch himself. The only reason he'd resisted was purely due to the fact that he's far too selfish to do anything to lose her, even if she's only a vision.

After all, what is he, _really?_ A man who's spent most of his life loaning out his services to the highest bidder, doing some of the most despicable things for the sake of the almighty dollar. Jake's a thief, a killer, a con-artist—you name it. If it was illegal, he'd done it. 

And somehow, Sherry still insists he's someone worthwhile. Every time she turns those kind, beautiful blue eyes on him, the absolute trust in them humbles him anew. 

And yeah, the wing thing had bothered him for a while. A _long_ while. Jake hardly ever binds, as a rule. Part of it is sheer vanity. _No one_ has wings like his, no one's wings are as _strong_ as his, and he knows he looks damn good, that they only help round out the striking figure he _knows_ he makes. The other part? Practicality. His wings are big and heavy and stuffing them into any kind of binding is too much of a hassle. Plus, he hates that itchy sensation of not being able to stretch when he wants to and his feathers tend to get messy and it takes _hours_ to groom them straight again—

It's just not worth it.

And he'd thought, based on how bulky Sherry's were in their linen prison, that hers were of comparable size, that they _had_ to be uncomfortable. Days, then weeks, then _months_ passed since they'd started working together, yet he'd never seen so much as a stray flight peeking out of the fabric. He'd chalked it up to her workaholic nature at first, just like her hair—two things she preferred out of her way while she worked. 

Slowly, they spent more time together, in the hotels they stayed at, at each other's apartment during their rare days back home, on the even rarer occasion they got to just hang out like friends—and still, nothing. By that point, so much time had gone by that it felt weird to bring it up—until three days ago, when he'd finally indulged his curiosity. And _boy,_ did that not go how he'd expected.

But then again, _nothing_ had gone how he'd expected since the moment he'd met Sherry, so perhaps he should have seen it coming. But still. _Five sets_ of wings. The sight of her, bloody and clothes torn, yet as beautiful and radiant as a fae creature of some other world—it still filled him with awe. Sherry might not think of herself as anything other than a freak, but Jake can recognize a damn angel when he sees one.

Jake squeezes Sherry's hand back. Whatever. Joke's on her, she agreed to be his girlfriend, so he's got all the time in the world to convince her.

They're directed to an empty conference room and they both relax a little, relieved, to see agent Ingrid Hunnigan waiting for them, already seated at the overly-polished wood table that dominated most of the room. She's plucking away at a tablet, but she looks up with a slight smile when they enter.

"Hello, Agent Birkin, Agent Muller. Congratulations on another successful mission."

Hunnigan is someone they're familiar with. Their handlers tend to rotate, but she's by far their favorite. She's a little _too_ by-the-books for Jake's taste, but at least she's not incompetent. She and Sherry got along like a house on fire, too, and there was none of that grating ineptitude whenever a mission went sideways and their intel proved unreliable. Hunnigan, at least, doesn't deflect with a shrug and simpering excuses. Unlike most of the people in the government, she actually does her job.

The debriefing goes smoothly. Hunnigan nods along as she types up their accounts to add to the overall report. She asks a few questions to clarify, and the only hiccup is when she asks about the time discrepancy between two of their check-ins and Sherry—clams up. Jake can practically _see_ the honest—and _wrong—_ answer pressing against the back of Sherry's lips and he speaks into the awkward pause easily, mentioning the lengthy hike, the supplies they'd lost during the fight, and the long hours in the dark spent searching for their things, fruitlessly.

Hunnigan's not stupid. Her dark eyes watch them with narrow suspicion, but she doesn't press. Sherry, however, still looks absurdly guilty, so Jake—reclined and slouched over in his chair—reaches out and takes her hand in his.

Sherry glances at him sharply, but when all Jake does it look at her steadily, she softens. The tiniest smile lifts her lips before she looks back at Hunnigan, attentive and focused, but with the guilty bow to her shoulders a thing of the past.

Hunnigan's eyes dart to their hands, then their faces, but she finishes her line of questioning before she calls the meeting to an end.

"I'll also make a note in your file about the status of your relationship," Hunnigan says, hand still tapping away at her tablet.

Beside him, Sherry stills. 

"Is that gonna be a problem?" Jake asks, eyes narrowing. If they say they can't be partners anymore, Jake's gonna quit, that's all there is to it. He has no problem going on missions with Sherry without being on the government's payroll.

Luckily, it doesn't come to that. 

"Unless it interferes with your duties, it shouldn't be an issue," Hunnigan assures thoughtfully. "There's no rule against it, _per se,"_ she goes on, adjusting her glasses, "It would be another story if either of you were subordinate to one another, but that clearly doesn't apply."

Sherry's shoulders sag and Jake can't deny a little relief himself. One less headache, at least.

"Good, that's...I hadn't even thought of that," Sherry says quietly, and the smile she shoots Jake is sheepish and so fucking cute he has to resist the urge to kiss her senseless.

When Hunnigan stands, the meeting now officially over, Jake wants to jump for joy. A shower, rest, and relaxation—all of it so close he can almost _taste_ it, and he has a feeling Sherry won't mind keeping him company while he enjoys being back home. After everything that's happened, he's not ready to part from her, even if it's only for the night.

Sherry exchanges a few last-minute well-wishes and thanks with Hunnigan, but then Hunnigan pauses at the doorway. She glances at Sherry over her shoulder.

"Oh, I nearly forgot. Agent Birkin, I received a notification from the Research Department—they're expecting you once we're done here. Your labs are overdue."

The change over Sherry is instantaneous. It's nothing as overt as a gasp or a shriek of terror, but her sudden stillness, the way her smile falls from her face and the sudden tension that takes over her signal a warning as clearly as any bell.

Then it's like nothing happened. Sherry's face smoothes and she nods, a polite, perfectly natural smile on her face. 

"Of course. I'll go there right now," she agrees. 

"I'll let them know," Hunnigan replies, "And thank you both for your work. Excellent, as always."

Jake wants to make a comment about that appreciation being reflected in their paychecks, but he's too preoccupied with Sherry's strange reaction and the moment passes by. Hunnigan raises a hand to her headset and strides away, already talking to some other agent in need.

There's a beat of silence, then Sherry turns to face Jake with a calm expression on her face, leaning towards wry. 

"I'll call you?" she ventures. "I don't know how long this is gonna take, but I can meet you after, if you'd like."

Jake watches her, unable to deny the _wrongness_ that settles over his skin the longer he looks at her. He wonders how he never noticed before, how nervous she gets when she's hiding something, obvious in the too-casual air, the careful distance she keeps between them. 

_Yeah, no._

"I'll walk you there," Jake offers, and he pulls her against him with a hand around her shoulders. They're out of the room before she can reply.

Sherry stumbles slightly, then matches his pace so she can crane her neck up enough to meet his eyes.

"Jake, you don't have to—"

"You'll be late if you don't tell me where I'm going," Jake points out, not breaking stride. 

"I—" Sherry shakes her head, then guides Jake at the next corner with a pointed nudge. "You're so pushy," Sherry comments, exasperated.

Jake leans down and presses a kiss to the side of her head. "It's part of my charm."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up with Sherry, I wonder...? 🤔 
> 
> Even though it was far too fleeting, I loved writing Hunnigan! And then I regretted it, because on the wiki it's spelled _Hannigan_ which, ew, no. But apparently in the older games (RE4, I think?) they went with the localization spelling of her name, and that's why there's this weird confusion over it now??? Anyways, she's Hunnigan in my heart and that's how she's staying lol.
> 
> See ya next week! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
> 
> ((Story title is from [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_of_silence_\(expression\)) expression, which is totally not relevant to this fic at all! 🥰))


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayy, so I think Thursdays will be the official update day for this fic, so look forward to that! 〜(꒪꒳꒪)〜

Jake already has bad vibes about this whole thing, but taking the elevator down more floors than he'd even known the building possessed helps cement it.

"Why does it seem like every government building in the world has some shady-ass secret lab?" he wonders, scowling at the illuminated panel of floor numbers as they patiently tick down.

Sherry huffs beside him, arms crossed, expression decidedly wry. 

"It's hardly a secret," she says in a tone that Jake's come to learn promises a lecture in his immediate future. "The D.S.O. combats bioterrorism on a global scale," she explains, and yep, it's lecture time. "They have to be ready to fight a viral outbreak at any moment." She gestures with a hand, pointing down. "This is the same place we used your blood to make a vaccine for the C-virus," she continues brightly, nearly excited. It's unfairly cute. Then her eyes cut to him, sly. "You'd already know this if you'd scheduled your physical."

Jake's scowl deepens. "I stand by my terms. Fifty bucks for the blood sample, anything else will cost extra."

Sherry just shakes her head but doesn't press. They'd talked (argued) about this before, but they both know the only reason Jake's been cleared for fieldwork despite not submitting to a basic physical is because the government would rather keep him under their watch than let him disappear off the map. The beauty of compromise. Just the thought of them having any more information on his biology than they already have makes his skin crawl.

Once the elevator stops just shy of the Earth's crust, Sherry leads Jake down a labrinthine path of identical, pristine halls. It's clearly a place she knows well, and though Jake's sense of direction is generally good, he's glad he has her to guide him.

One last hallway, and then they're stepping through two wide, textured glass doors. They slide open with an affable beep to reveal a small waiting area and a wide receptionist desk, all of it a glaring enough white Jake winces against it. An older woman with a gray-streaked, severe bun sits behind the desk, typing away at her computer, although she spares them a mildly curious glance when they enter.

Jake trails behind as Sherry approaches the desk.

"I'm Sherry Birkin," she introduces politely. "I'm expected?"

"Birkin..." The woman murmurs, clicking away. "Yes, I see you right here. It looks like Doctor Gorkis is seeing you today. Here," the woman stands, plucking a cliboard and pen from a drawer at her side and places a few sheets of paper on the counter between them. "Fill these out, please. It's the standard questionaire. I'll let him know you're here while you do that."

Sherry's head bobs as she takes the offered items. "Thank you."

Sherry takes a seat on one of the hard plastic chairs that's situated at the far side of the room, although she glances at Jake as she sits.

"You don't have to stay, Jake," she says quietly, almost urging him away. "Honestly, I really don't know how long this will take, and it'll be pretty boring waiting around here."

"Probably," he agrees. It still doesn't stop him from taking the seat beside her, carefully making sure his wings don't get crushed. He stretches his legs out, crosses them at the ankles, and laces his fingers behind his head as he gets comfortable. He closes his eyes against the harsh fluorescent lights and gives a quiet sigh. All in all, he's slept in worse places.

Jake can feel Sherry's stare, but he doesn't so much as twitch, content right where he is. After a long pause, he hears the scratch of her pen and he cracks open an eye to peek.

Sherry's face isn't quite as smooth as before, and her worry leeks onto her face, betrayed by the slight furrow of her brow, the nervous bounce of her knee as she writes. Jake doesn't like the disquiet that's plain to see on her. If her wings were out, she'd be seconds from flight.

He closes his eyes before she can catch him watching, but there's no way he's falling asleep.

They spend a few minutes this way, in tense, expectant silence, before the beep of another door opening makes them both look up.

From a door just beside the main desk, a lab coat steps out. Jake already doesn't like him on principle, his memories of China still fresh in his mind, and he _especially_ doesn't like the stern-faced orderly that steps out with him in his plain gray scrubs. The short-sleeves of his top throw into relief his muscled arms. 

_What the fuck?_

Jake and Sherry are practically the only bit of color in the room and the Doctor's eyes alight on them in an instant. He seems pleasant enough, with his thin frame and harmless brown eyes. Jake still doesn't like him.

"Hey," Jake starts, reaching out for Sherry's hand. 

The moment he touches her, Sherry snatches his hand in a vice-grip, tight enough to _hurt._ Then, just as quickly, she releases him, like she's burned herself on his skin. Her eyes are wide and anything he might have been about to say is wiped clear from his mind.

"Sorry," she apologizes, quick and quiet, shoulders stiff. She looks back down at her clipboard. "I...I don't know why I did that."

Jake's hand is still hovering in the air where she'd dropped it and that bad feeling? It's pushed straight into dread when Sherry stands up.

"I'll text you," she's saying dismissively, but she doesn't take a single step before Jake's up and gripping her shoulders. Beneath his hands, she's taut enough it's a wonder her muscles don't snap.

Jake doesn't understand what's happening, but he knows he doesn't like it, and he'll be _damned_ before he just lets Sherry waltz away without some explanation.

"Sherry," he says quietly, aiming for soothing, and the soft tone makes her eyes meet his, although she seems reluctant to. "What's up, huh?" His thumbs stroke the top of her shoulders. "What's going on?"

Sherry frowns, but to her credit, she at least doesn't try to deny something's wrong. "I—" She heaves a big, frustrated breath. "Sorry. I always get like this before my labs, that's all."

"Miss Birkin," Doctor Gorkis greets, hands clasped before him. He steps forward, a genial smile on his lips. "We were beginning to worry you wouldn't make your appoint—"

Jake's wings _burst_ out like black thunderbolts, wide and arched high above him—a warning and threat without him ever having to say a word. 

Everyone falls silent and alert. The orderly and the receptionist have their wings bound, but their eyes are wide with wary fear as they look at Jake's huge, resplendent black wings. Doctor Gorkises thin, carefully folded brown wings come over his shoulders, falling over them like a cloak, cowering in instinctive fear.

Jake nearly smirks. He knows he has a bit of reputation here, the shady mercenary turned agent who skipped a lot of the red tape that came with being an agent because he was simply too dangerous to not be on some kind of a leash. He's more than happy to use that to his advantage now. 

He glares at Doctor Gorkis for another beat, then drops his eyes back to Sherry.

Sherry's somehow tenser than before, eyes darting away and back, clearly aware of the people behind them, watching. Jake shows her they don't matter by gently taking her chin in his hand and directing her focus squarely on him.

"What kind of tests?" he asks quietly, only audible enough for her to hear him.

Sherry shrugs, but it's jerky. This whole thing is clearly getting to her. 

"Just—the usual things, I guess. Bloodwork, my physical, evaluations on my healing factor." She turns beseeching eyes on Jake, curls her fingers around his forearm as her eyes soften, apologetic and earnest. "It's really not a big deal," she insists. "I'm just nervous, that's all."

Jake makes a considering noise, low in his throat. His eyes rove over Sherry's face, and even though she's saying all the right things, even seems to _mean_ what she's saying, Jake's never been one to ignore a gut feeling. And even more, he's recently seen what it takes to make Sherry lose her composure, to visibly balk, and it'd be stupid to ignore these signs when they're practically thrown in his face.

But he's not gonna force her to talk about it, not here and now around these creepy-ass strangers and their weirdly beefed-up orderlies. Jake's always been one for action, anyways.

Jake drops his hand. "All right." He lowers his wings back down, pretending he can't hear the collective sighs of relief that brings, and retakes Sherry's hand in his as he steps up to stand beside her.   
  
"I'll go, too," he says, and Sherry's mouth drops open. 

"Jake, what—?"

"It works out both ways, right?" Jake presses, directing the question at the doctor, who's expression had lit up with interest the moment Jake had made his offer. "You guys finally get that damn evaluation you've been asking me for and _I_ get to keep an eye on you," he says, glancing back down at Sherry. Her expression is unhappy, but she doesn't seem to know how to argue it, either. While she struggles with that, Jake shoots the doctor another glare. "That a problem?"

"Not at all!" Doctor Gorkis agrees straightaway, something like excitement in his tone. "We have been curious about—"

"One condition," Jake interrupts, voice like steel. "We do it together," he says, holding up their clasped hands slightly for emphasis.

The doctor freezes. A long pause stretches, but Jake holds his ground.

Finally: "Well, it's...unorthodox, but it should be doable," Doctor Gorkis concedes. He takes a half-step away and gestures towards the door he came from. "If you'll come this way, we can get started."

Jake take a step to follow, but a harsh tug on his arm makes him stop.

Sherry's glaring up at him, although it's undercut with too much worry for it to be genuine. _"Jake,"_ she hisses, protesting.

"Get over it," Jake advises. "It's happening."

Sherry's lips press into a thin line. They glare each other down, but Jake doesn't even blink. After a long moment, Sherry finally looks away. She slips her hand from his grasp, and he tries not to be too staggered by how much that hurts.

"Fine," she says tightly, and then she strides away. Jake follows her, scowling.

The doctor scurries off to whatever petri dish he hatched from and the orderly takes them to a small changing room and hands them each a set of pale blue scrubs. With simple instruction on where to go afterwards, he leaves them alone. Jake spends a few seconds glaring at the clothes in his hands resentfully. He already hates this.

His distaste must be obvious, because Sherry speaks up, her earlier anger already gone. He idly wonders what it would take to make her hold a grudge.

"Jake, you don't have to do this." When he looks over at her, she's standing just a few feet away, eyes worried—worried for _him._ "I've done this dozens of times. It's really nothing to make a fuss over."

Jake watches her, then tosses his scrubs on the small bench just a foot away from the row of lockers. Without a word, he shrugs off his coat, then his shirt, carefully folding his wings in as he goes. Sherry sighs, and he glances over at her, expecting to see her angry again. Instead, she's holding herself tightly, eyes downcast, and guilt seems to pour off of her in _waves._

Jake freezes, and his heart lurches in sympathy. Without even thinking about it, he holds out an hand.

"Hey," he coaxes, wanting nothing more than to chase that expression off her face. "Hey, come 'ere."

Sherry shuffles closer, tentative, and the moment she's in reaching distance, Jake pulls her the rest of the way. He holds her close, eyes sliding shut at the feeling of her pressed against him. Should something so simple feel this good?

"If you really don't want me here, I'll get lost," Jake tells her quietly, and he means it. "But only if you're being honest with me, Super Girl. You just...you've got this look on your face, all right? And it's reminding me a lot of the last time you said you were 'fine'." 

Walking into that bathroom, seeing the feathers floating in the pink water, the thick rivulets of blood as it ran down Sherry's arm—he doesn't think he's ever been more scared in his _life._ The slight hitch in her breath tells Jake she's remembering that moment, too. 

"It's not your being here that's the problem," she explains quietly, holding him tighter. "I'm wasting your time and I don't—I'm making you worry over nothing"

Jake rubs her back beneath the thick bundle of her wings, bound tight. "Do you want me to leave?" he repeats.

Sherry shakes her head against his chest with another sigh. "No. Of course not."

"Then I'll stay," he says simply. 

They linger in their embrace for a little longer, then Jake makes himself nudge Sherry back towards where she'd abandoned her scrubs on the other end of the bench.

"Come on, let's hurry up and get this over with. I've been craving pizza since Germany and we're only spending an hour here, _tops,_ and then I'm calling it. If they've got a problem with it?" Jake shoves the stupid, paper-thin scrub shirt on and says flatly, "They can go fuck themselves."

Sherry's answering smile is slighter than usual. But it's better than nothing. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As soon as I played the RE3 remake and saw Doctor Gorkises dumb, dorky face, I _knew_ he had to be in any and every RE fic I could shoehorn him in! And then I looked him up, and I'm pretty sure that's the actor's _actual_ name??? Idk why they wouldn't give him a fake name, but it's so hilarious to me that I'm not even mad about it lol.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ayy, it's Thursday already! Enjoy ya'lls angst! (づ￣ ³￣)づ

The six months he'd been held captive in China had been one of the worst experiences of Jake's life. The piercing, relentless light and bleach-white walls, the stress of being woken up at any moment for more experiments and tests, how it often felt like they'd taken his _body weight_ in blood samples—it had all created quite the cocktail of torment. What was worse still was not knowing if Sherry was dead or alive—although a part of him had known she couldn't be dead. She was too strong. 

All in all, the physical and mental abuse had compounded to create some pretty intense nightmare fuel, and it certainly isn't helping that walking to their exam room is reminding him of that time of captivity—eerily so.

A touch on his wing pulls him away from those memories. Sherry, blue eyes only too understanding, watches him sympathetically. She lightly threads her fingers through the harder feathers that form the arch of his wing and it's only then that he notices how tense he is, how his wings have stiffened as if in anticipation of an attack.

Jake releases a slow, inaudible breath to steady himself. He takes Sherry's hand and presses a quick, thankful kiss to her knuckles, lets his gaze linger on her shy, pleased smile. The tight clench of his heart eases just from the sight of her.

The two experiences don't compare at all, he realizes. This is already infinitely better.

But any calm Sherry had helped him reach is utterly _obliterated_ the moment they walk into the exam room.

It's simple enough; it has the exam table, the counter and sink against the far side, a computer for pulling up files and taking notes—there's even some fancier equipment stationed around, not that Jake has much experience with something like that since he's, _one,_ never been sick a day in his life and _two,_ grew up too dirt-poor to even afford a doctor in the first place. Everything about the room is completely normal and absolutely harmless.

Except for the long metal table that's been wheeled up close to the examination bed. On its surface glints dozens of medical instruments, ranging from simple scissors to _drills._

Jake comes to a brutal halt just inside the door, every nerve on end. Without a thought, he takes a step forward and nudges Sherry behind him, a barrier between her and whatever the fuck is going on in here. He tucks her against his side with an insistent press of one of his wings and ignores her startled protests. 

Doctor Gorkis sits on a tall stool at a rolling computer desk pulled up beside the exam table, eyes only for the screen as he types. 

"You can take a seat," he says pleasantly. "I'm just creating your file, Mr. Muller."

Jake absolutely does _not_ take a seat.

"What the fuck are those for?"

Doctor Gorkis finally deigns to look away from his computer. He meets Jake's glare with an expression of blank incomprehension.

"Pardon?"

"The fucking _table,_ doc."

Doctor Gorkis glances down at the spread of medical tools. "They're simple tools of measurement, I assure you, rather standard—"

"I know _what_ they are," Jake interrupts, impatient and pissed off. "I've tortured people before. I'm asking what the fuck they're doing _here."_

The doc looks uncomfortable now, but not in the shamed way a person gets when they've been caught doing something wrong. More like a beleaguered employee who's found themselves in the pitiable position of having to deal with a belligerent customer at a grocery store.

Sherry's hand comes to rest on his lower back and he glances back at her.

"It's okay, Jake," she assures him. Her eyes flit to the table and away, unphased. "This is normal."

Jake _stares_ at her. 

"Well, that's fucked up," he says brutally, a hard edge to his voice that he can't be bothered to smother. Sherry's eyes widen in surprise. 

"Miss Birkin's biology is singularly unique, as I'm sure you're aware," Doctor Gorkis explains. "The ways the G-virus has adapted within her is, frankly, unprecedented." 

Sherry finds her voice again. She steps forward, but can't quite escape the sheltering fold of his wing, not without his cooperation. Her other hand comes over his stomach and her expression is so soothing, trying _so hard_ to reassure Jake everything is all right.

"I know how it looks," she says quietly. "But it's really not that bad. And it's only once a year," she tacks on, like that makes a goddamn difference. "Compared to before..." Sherry shakes her head, eyes nothing but determined. "This is nothing."

It's rare for Jake to be rendered truly speechless, but he finds himself experiencing the sensation now. He's almost awed by how fucked they've got Sherry in the head that she's at the point of _defending_ her own torture. 

"Okay," Jake says reasonably. He looks between the two, fights to maintain some control even though all he wants to do is destroy something—right _now._ "You're both out of your fucking minds if you think I'm going to sit by and watch him use those things on you. And you're _dreaming_ if you think I'm letting you touch _me_ with any of that," Jake says, glaring holes into Doctor Gorkis.

"Jake," Sherry's saying under her breath. She tugs insistently on Jake's scrub shirt, but he can't look at her right now, not when she's just going to try to convince Jake to let these people hurt her. 

"Oh, we won't be using these on _you,"_ Doctor Gorkis assures. 

At his sides, Jake's hands tighten into fists. 

_"What,"_ he says slowly, voice sub-zero. The sound of his voice makes them both freeze. "Exactly. Is confusing you? I _said_ you're not fucking _touching_ her with that shit."

"We've..." The doc looks so helpless, so confused. "We've performed these tests for years," he defends. "This is all fairly routine."

Sherry's hinted at this before, but being confronted with the reality makes him want to kill something; maybe puke. 

"If that's true," Jake says through gritted teeth, "Then why the _fuck_ are you still doing these 'tests'? Why are they even necessary when you have all this data?"

"Well, it's still very important we monitor the virus—"

"You can do that with a _blood sample,"_ Jake presses, seething, and Doctor Gorkis visibly swallows.

"There are—there are aspects of it we can't observe through a blood sample alone—"

It's such a pathetic, flimsy excuse, it snaps the _extremely_ tenuous thread of patience Jake had been holding on to—purely for Sherry's sake. He pulls his wings in, finally freeing Sherry, and he stalks forward in strides that eat up the distance between him and the doctor in _seconds._ His palm slams on the table just beside him while the other grasps the edge of the computer screen. It cracks in his grip.

Doctor Gorkises face is almost comical in its pure, unadulterated fear, but the thought of what he'd have done to Sherry had Jake not insisted on coming with her wipes away even a chance at levity.

"I don't like to repeat myself," Jake starts conversationally, "But I'm making an exception because you seem really fucking stupid." Jake shifts just that much closer, wings hovering over them like twin vultures. He says, slowly and deliberately, "Sherry's not here to be tortured just to satisfy your scientific curiosity. Is that clear? What you do to me, you do to her, and _I'm_ here for a _fucking physical."_

The sound of the door opening sounds with that cheerful beep, and Doctor Gorkises eyes dart to the side. Jake follows his sightline only to meet the stern, wary gaze of that weirdly-muscular orderly from before. He stands at the ready, eyeing Jake up with intent.

The sight of him makes a slow smile—completely devoid of happiness—crawl across Jake's face. His wings raise over his back, spreading slowly, to blot out the light around him. 

"I would honestly _love_ to punch someone right now," Jake says, voice dripping with deadly intent.

Doctor Gorkis's swallow is audible. He shakes his head quickly, face pale.

"That—that won't be necessary!"

Things go smoothly after that. They sit side by side as the doctor listens to both of their hearts, tests their reflexes, draws a _small_ amount of blood beneath Jake's glare. 

Sherry is silent beside him, so quiet it quickly jumps to number one on Jake's list of Things To Be Fucking Concerned About. He wonders if all of his interfering and waving his dick around has pissed her off enough that's she's skipped the lecture phase entirely and settled firmly on ignoring him. 

More than once, Jake catches her glancing at the table of instruments, wary and unsure, brow furrowed as if she's waiting for the other shoe to drop and for one of them to hop up and stab her or something. He catches Doctor Gorkis doing the same, although his gaze is decidedly more longing. Jake makes sure to glare at him in these moments and the doctor is quick to avert his gaze, busying himself with his clipboard or whatever test he has next.

The only other problem they encounter is when they're being measured for wingspan. They have to stand some distance apart since they're both so large, but while Jake loves admiring Sherry's wings, it's marred by her tiny wince of pain when the orderly holds out her largest back wing for Doctor Gorkis to measure.

Jake's there in a second flat, grip purposely too hard as he seizes that meaty hand and _forces_ it away. The guy yelps in alarmed pain and anger, but Jake doesn't give a shit. 

"What the hell is wrong with you? It's a wing, not your fucking dick, don't just grab it like that!"

They barely touch Sherry after that, which is for the best for everyone involved. Jake hasn't stopped wishing for his gun since they _got_ here. 

Soon after that, they're sent packing. Doctor Gorkis and the orderly seem displeased, Sherry's silent and won't meet any of their eyes, and Jake's more unsettled by the entire experience than he cares to admit. They hadn't hurt Sherry, but it doesn't feel like a win, either.

It's tense as they get dressed. They don't speak and Sherry _still_ doesn't look at him. Jake doesn't regret what he'd done, but he hates this awful distance that's sprung up between them, right when they'd finally found one another again.

Sherry's distracted. It takes her longer than it should to get dressed, and her fingers linger for long pauses on the buttons of her shirt once she maneuvers it past her wings. She slides on her coat at last, idly rubbing at her wrist and the wing tucked beneath with a faraway expression Jake can't place. 

Finally, she looks at him and seems to realize they're still here. She hesitates, eyes going from him, to the room. 

Jake takes pity on her. "You hungry?"

Sherry blinks at him like she's never heard of the concept. "Uh, no. Not really."

Jake shrugs and kicks off the locker. "Well, I'm starved. Let's get some food."

"Yeah. Sure." Sherry brushes by him and out the door and Jake stares after her for a long moment.

"... _Shit,"_ he says under his breath. And he follows her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up with Sherry, I wonder? 🤔🤔🤔


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter you've all been waiting for: Jake gets pizza!!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ 
> 
> oh, also other stuff happens, I guess.

Sherry's silence persists in the car, but she seems more pensive than anything when Jake steals glances at her. Her chin's propped in the palm of her hand as she gazes out into the gray skies above the highway traffic, but something tells Jake she doesn't really see it. 

True to his word, Jake goes to the first pizza joint that has a drive-thru and grabs one with all the meat they can reasonably shove onto it and still leave room for the dough. Sherry just shakes her head when he offers one last time to get her something, and then it's back to listening to the radio. He tries channel surfing, bouncing between hard rock and country and pop, just to pull her back to the present, but still—nothing. Normally Sherry can't resist the urge to tease Jake over his car, over how conspicuous a flashy black Camaro is for someone who works a glorified desk job. He'll typically respond that there's nothing in his contract saying he has to drive a Prius and he'll only get in a _mini-van_ under immediate threat of death, and maybe not even then, and Sherry'll laugh—

Jake shifts in his seat and grips the steering wheel tighter. Sherry keeps staring out of the window.

She finally snaps out of it when the car stops and doesn't move again. Sherry straightens, blinking, and sees her modest brownstone apartment building and unbuckles herself. It's as she's looking down that she glances over at Jake and she pauses, still holding the buckle over her chest. Her brow furrows.

"You're not coming up?"

Jake watches her for a moment in mute surprise. He parks the car. He comes up.

Jake's been to Sherry's place plenty of times, sometimes just to chill, more often to meet up before they went to work. He's crashed there a lot too, usually when they get back at some unholy hour and needed a safe place and a warm bed _yesterday._ There's nothing _wrong_ with Jake's place, but Sherry's is closer to work, so it's where they end up more often than not.

Up the elevator, down the hall, and then Sherry's swinging her door wide. 

"Sorry about the mess," she says, locking up behind Jake. 

His gray eyes take in the fading sunset casting orange light on the immaculate wood floors, the thriving plants tastefully hanging from the ceiling and situated just so in the corners of the living room and on the coffee table, the cozy throw blanket over the plush couch and the organized and alphabetized bookshelf next to the tv. He graciously doesn't point out that, as usual, her place looks like a damn ad for _IKEA_ and plops his pizza on the coffee table. 

"I'm..." Sherry rubs at her arm. Her eyes are focused on the hall leading to her bedroom. "I'm gonna get changed and stuff."

Jake just watches her go, trying to squash the uneasy feeling that comes over him when he hears the bathroom door close a minute or so later. After a moment, the shower cuts on and he thinks, _Okay. Okay._

Logically, he knows he can't storm in every time she uses the bathroom, but the urge...yeah, it's gonna take some time to go away. It feels like almost every time he closes his eyes, all he can see are snowy white feathers, splattered with blood.

His jaw aches and Jake abruptly realizes he's clenching it. It's a bad habit that he'd thought he'd seen the last of _years_ ago and he forces himself to relax with a near-inaudible, slow exhale. He plops down on the couch and flips open the lid of his pizza; if Sherry's gonna end this thing before it starts, he might as well have a full stomach.

His attention is divided between the food and the bathroom, so he flips aimlessly through the channels on the TV before settling on some mindless action flick he can ignore easily. There are explosions and yelling, which is good enough for him.

He hears the door open about twenty minutes later and he doesn't look away from the screen as he hears Sherry pad behind him and into the kitchen. There's the sound of ice clinking against glass, the faint suction of her opening the fridge and shutting it, and after a few more moments a pale hand comes into view as she sits beside him and places a glass of water on the coffee table.

"Thanks," he mutters, and as he reaches out to take it, he shoots Sherry a quick glance—only to stop short.

Sherry hums in soft, absent agreement, eyes downcast as she tucks a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. She takes a sip of her own cup, and then her eyes catch on Jake's, watching her. "...What?"

"Nothin'. Just..." Jake shakes his head, can't stop the smile that pulls his lips. He points at her, just over her shoulder. "You left them out."

Sherry blushes, the wings at her wrists and over her back twitching, betraying her unease. Her skin is still flushed from her shower and a mouth-watering amount of it is showing below her pajama shorts and the thin tank she's wearing. Jake feels guilty, at first, for immediately noticing that she's not wearing a bra even though it's obvious, but then he remembers that he's _technically_ still her boyfriend and can look all he wants.

Sherry had tucked a leg underneath her when she'd sat and now she brings the other one up on the couch. She holds the glass of water close to her chest like it can shield her from Jake's attention.

"Well, you _said,"_ she mutters, blushing. 

Her embarrassment is as obvious as it is stupidly cute. Jake's smile widens into a grin. Feeling this much affection for a person—he's sure it's gonna kill him.

"Yeah, I did," Jake agrees with warm satisfaction. 

Jake just drinks in the sight of her, soft and beautiful and strong, until she starts to squirm. His wing reaches across the distance between them and Sherry looks between him and the wing quickly, surprised, before tentatively stretching the set closest in a shy, gossamer-smooth brush of feathers.

He must look like a damn sap, smiling so happily, but he can't bring himself to care. Not when Sherry smiles back, hesitant but content. 

And maybe it's a little mean, to ask her in this moment, but he has to. "Shery..." He shifts to lean back against the couch, lays his arm across the back of it. "Are you okay?" Sherry's look of incomprehension makes him press. "Like, do you want to talk about earlier, or...?"

Jake _sure as shit_ wants to talk about it, but he's not going to force her right now if she doesn't want to. She's taught him a lot about patience since they'd first met.

"Oh, no, uh—" Sherry sets her water aside, a small frown on her face. After a pause, she looks back at Jake, places her hand over his, warm and gentle. "I really am fine, Jake, thank you." She smiles, wry. "I mean, nothing even happened. I guess I'm...feeling off-center," she continues, slow and thoughtful. "I don't know what they're going to tell my superiors, for one."

"If they've got a problem with it, you can direct them my way," he says, flipping his hand under hers so he can hold it. 

"I'll keep that in mind," she replies, smiling. Her smiles fades and she looks away, eyes just as blind as before as she looks at the TV. "If I'm being honest, I feel...weird. I'm not used to my labs going that way..." She falls quiet, remembering god knows what, before she visibly pulls herself back with a fresh, wry smile. "It's an adjustment, for sure."

An adjustment, to not be _tortured,_ she means. Just thinking about what Sherry's gone through in the past, what she's been conditioned to simply accept as her due, makes Jake want to go straight back to that lab and take a flamethrower to it. Discreetly, he steadies himself with another slow, nasal exhale. Being with Sherry is more important right now. He can exact vengeance later.

Sherry squeezes his hand, her smile now more fond and grateful than ever. "I...Thank you, Jake, for what you did before. Even though I didn't really appreciate it at first." Another squeeze. "Really."

It doesn't feel as great as she probably imagines, being thanked for protesting her being experimented on for no reason, but he knows that trying to get her to understand that is a losing battle—not to mention an argument he _really_ doesn't feel up to right now, maybe not _ever._

He pulls her hand close and drops a kiss on the back of it. "Don't mention it," he says instead. 

It's early, barely even six o'clock, but Jake still stands. "Look, it's late, and I'm fucking beat." He rolls his head, smirking at the way Sherry's nose wrinkles when his neck pops. "Let's say, just for tonight, we forget about all this and pass out. Deal?"

Sherry's expression is one of intense relief, and her answering nod is comically fervent.

"Deal."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Neither of them realize it yet, but they deserve each other. XD


	5. Chapter 5

Jake comes awake abruptly, eyes snapping open, already pushing himself up on an elbow even as his bleary eyes scan the room for a possible threat.

It's empty, and his sleep-fogged mind takes a moment to clue into the fact that that _is_ the problem.

_Sherry._

Her side of the bed is barely even warm when he stretches out his hand, which tells him it isn't a sudden bathroom break that's pulled her from sleep.

 _It's probably nothing,_ he tells himself even as his heart rate picks up with anxious worry. _Could be anything. Needed to stretch or something._

Yet all Jake can see are roughly torn, bloody feathers, the result of the _last_ time he'd left her alone when she was dealing with something he didn't fully understand. 

Jake gets out of bed.

To his mingled worry and relief, the bathroom's dark and empty, door left ajar. The rest of the apartment is silent, but there's a door closed opposite the bathroom, where a faint, blue-tinged light creeps beneath the crack. Jake twists the handle and opens it slowly.

His eyes find Sherry instantly, sitting at her desk in her home office. She'd lost most of her stuff in that forest back in Germany, but she's such a workaholic that she has two laptops, one for travel and one for home. She's staring into the latter now and the lower half of her face is covered by her fingers, laced together as she glares at the screen, eyes critical and narrowed.

She hasn't noticed him yet, too focused on whatever she's working on, and Jake takes a moment to watch her as he props his shoulder on the doorframe. Her expression is one that's familiar to him, much like any other time she poured over mission-related intel. And as a team, they're in high enough demand, so he could even believe they've already received new orders and Sherry's just going over them. 

But the hunch of her shoulders is all wrong, as well as the stiff, defensive arch of her wings. At her wrists, the small ones twitch randomly, unfurling slightly before drawing close again in agitation. Her eyes, too, are a little too bleak to be looking at something so innocuous as work.

Jake taps his knuckles against the doorframe. "Hey."

He'd pitched his voice low, but Sherry still jolts like she's been shot. Her hands fall from her face as she straightens and he catches the way she starts to reach for her laptop before she stops—an aborted move of concealment, he's sure.

"Uh, hey, Jake," she greets. Her mouth twitches into a smile, weak and oddly guilty. 

"Hm." Jake pushes off the doorframe and walks into the room, affecting a nonchalance he doesn't feel. "Couldn't sleep?"

At his approach, Sherry's face goes pinched. She looks askance for a brief second, and when she turns her eyes back on him, something defeated and resigned crawls across her features. 

"No," she answers. "Did I wake you?"

"Nah." Jake rounds the desk, but just before he can see the screen, Sherry speaks up, tone strained and urgent and apologetic, all at once.

"Just—" She sighs, a quick, explosive sound. "Don't be mad," she cautions, eyes wide and worried.

Jake looks at her sharply, not liking the sound of _that_ at all. He narrows his eyes at her, but Sherry just meets his look tiredly. She gives a helpless little shrug of her shoulder. 

_That's reassuring._

Steeling himself, Jake finally breaks eye contact to glance at the laptop screen—and locks up _completely_ with a sharp, shocked in-drawn breath. Raw horror washes over him, icy claws that shred his chest and turn him to stone.

The security footage is split between three different angles, and each window gives Jake a sickeningly detailed view of _Sherry._

Sherry, clad in the self-same scrubs they'd worn earlier. Sherry, fucking _gagged,_ tears pouring down her face and unfathomably deep, incredible exhaustion clear in her eyes, even in black and white.

He's looking at _Sherry_ on that screen, strapped upright to a metal table, her screams muted but palpable as some lab-coat wearing _fuck_ in gloves up to his elbows _sawed_ at Sherry's wings with a pair of gleaming bolt cutters. Blood and feathers pooled at their feet and he could see in disgusting, horrifying high definition the way the bone and sinew near the base of her wing splintered in raw, jagged protrusions of cartilage and muscle, how they tried to grow anew even as the blades tore and ripped and mangled until _finally,_ the entire thing fell to the ground like a corpse and Sherry's body seized against the restraints—

Jake doesn't even think. One moment, the footage is there. The next moment, that harrowing, repulsive image is simply gone, smashed to pieces beneath Jake's fist.

He can barely hear the sound of the laptop shattering beneath his knuckles, not over the rush of blood through his ears, the fierce sting of ice as it swallows his entire body in all-consuming, desperate denial and instinctive abhorrence. His wings had flared out without his permission, but he'd hardly felt the lamp behind him as he knocked it to the floor, nor half the books on the shelf behind them. All he can hear are Sherry's agonized, silent screams, all he can see are her tears and blood and her wing plopping wetly to the sterile floor like _garbage—_

_FUCK. FUCK!_

Sherry's reactions now make a _hell_ of a lot more sense; if anything, she'd done a remarkable job of keeping herself composed if _this_ was the kind of shit she expected. And Jake, he's only seen a little bit of it, mere _seconds,_ but Sherry's been going through this for _years._

That look in her eyes, varnished of any emotion other than raw honesty. _More than I could stand._

Jake doesn't want to think about it; he can't _stop_ thinking about it. He'd protected her today, but it only feels like far too little, far, _far_ too late. The pain she's suffered all this time, alone, believing she deserved it—Jake hasn't felt this powerless in longer than he can remember. Maybe not since his mom died. 

Until this very moment, Jake's never seen Sherry cry. Tear up, sure, but for all that he used to tease her for being a damsel in distress, he'd never met someone tougher. He's seen her face impossible odds, witnessed her stare down the barrel of a gun without so much as a flinch. And now he knows what it takes. 

The urge to be sick is overwhelming.

A light touch on his hand, still knuckle-deep in smash computer parts, drags him back to the present. 

Sherry's watching him with naked concern, wings drawn close. She looks so sad, but not for herself. Tentatively, her fingers slide beneath his fist, coax his hand up and away from the mess. There's a faint sting where he must have cut himself, but he doesn't give it a single ounce of his attention, too busy staring into Sherry's eyes, trying to understand how that tortured girl on the screen and the kind, hopeful, unfathomably strong one in front of him can exist simultaneously, against all odds in a world that's tried its best to destroy them both.

Sherry cradles Jake's taut fist in her hands. "Breathe," she says quietly.

The simple command makes Jake realize he's trembling, that he really _hasn't_ been breathing, a subconscious reflex that holds his body under such tight restraint because he doesn't want to lose any more control than he already has. 

His first few breaths are more like shuddering gasps. He squeezes his eyes shut, panting, but blinks them open in nearly the same instant, unwilling to see those horrible images that have been burned into the back of his eyelids.

Sherry's calm eyes reassure and rattle him in equal measure and the fierce, burning protectiveness that sweeps over him—he doesn't even try to resist it, he just grabs her shoulders, hauls her up, and _crushes_ her close in a hold that's probably too tight, but he can't make himself loosen it, not yet.

Sherry gasps, a quiet, surprised little yelp, and she stiffens in Jake's hold—a trained response that makes so, _so_ much sense now that he's seen a little more of the bigger picture. Jake buries his face against her neck, wishing more than anything that there was something he could do but he can't, he's just _standing_ here and he's _useless._

Once she's over the initial surprise, Sherry sinks into the embrace. Her arms come around Jake's waist and she squeezes him back. They're pressed tightly, but it's nowhere near close enough.

Sherry's hand sweeps over his back in comforting, slow strokes. 

"It's okay," she murmurs over his shoulder, voice soft and soothing. "It's okay, Jake. I'm okay."

But she's not, is she? Heart breaking, Jake can't do anything but hold on until he feels steady enough to stand on his own.

It takes a while. It's nearly pitch black with the glow of the laptop gone and the lamp still on the ground, illuminating the wall and not much else, so there's no clock to see that can tell him how long it's been. And even when he's managed to recover enough to speak, he still can't bring himself to let go. His fingers skate up the center of her back, achingly careful and gentle as he traces the base of a wing, at the exact place he'd seen it cut off, reassuring himself that it's _there_ and she's whole. Sherry jerks in his hold, the way she does any time he touches her wings, but he needs this. Just for a moment.

"Sherry," he finally rasps, a small eternity later. "What... _what the fuck."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


	6. Chapter 6

Sherry sighs, quiet and tired. She sags a little in Jake's hold, but she doesn't speak.

But this time, Jake isn't strong enough, or _calm_ enough, to give her time. He needs answers, _now._

"Sherry."

"...It's obvious, isn't it?" Her voice is almost monotone; placid observation of fact. "It was old footage of the experiments."

And yeah, it _is_ obvious. Jake recognizes _that_ much, for all that Sherry hadn't appeared much younger than she is now. But—

"They cut off your wing," he manages to say past the bile building up in the back of his throat. 

Sherry keeps rubbing his back. "Yeah."

Jake just _barely_ stops himself from snapping Sherry in half from the force of how close he crushes her to him.

"They _cut off._ Your _wing."_ And it _has_ to hurt by now, how hard he's holding her, smothering even, but he can't help it. An irrational, yet undeniably strong and overwhelming part of his brain is insisting that as long as he's holding her, she's _safe._ That as long as he's got her, what he's just seen is a little less real. "What the _fuck_ kind of test is that?"

Sherry makes a low noise of disinterest. Her palm pauses at his lower back, warm, as she considers. "Not sure," she finally mumbles. "It was part of the usual routine, I guess. I didn't question it."

Jake absorbs that, eyes closing against those words as if they're a mortal blow. "That's fucking sick."

Sherry doesn't have a response to that and Jake's got a bad feeling it's because she _doesn't_ agree, but doesn't want to argue more. 

_God,_ he thinks. Then, _God **dammit.**_

In Germany, Jake had seen the way self-hatred had nearly eaten Sherry alive. She'd compared herself to a monster, had _mutilated_ herself because of the way she looked. He'd thought he'd understood what he was dealing with, but he's only _now_ starting to understand he doesn't know what the fuck he's doing— _at all._

Jake finally opens his eyes over, stares without seeing over Sherry's shoulder at the broken pieces of the laptop scattered across her desk.

She'd warned him, in a way, had been for a while—but he hadn't listened, not really. He'd thought he'd come so far, but maybe he's still that selfish asshole she'd met back in Edonia, too self-absorbed for his own good.

He's never been one to doubt himself, but in this moment, it's all Jake can think to do. There's nothing he wants more than to help Sherry heal from the past, from anything that's hurt her, but what can someone like him offer her? _Really?_

And maybe if he wasn't holding Sherry, he'd succumb to that doubt, too. But if there's one thing he can't deny, it's how he feels about Sherry, how she _makes_ him feel. And more than anything, more than the way her beauty seems to captivate him anew or her kindness and selflessness awes him, Sherry _inspires_ him, inspires him to do _better._

So that nagging sense of self-doubt? The one telling him to break it off before either of them get their hopes up, thinking Jake won't do anything other than make this worse? Jake shoves it far, _far_ down. He's not gonna pussy out just because he's worried he's not good enough. He'll _make_ himself good enough. Sherry deserves nothing less.

The resolution pulls Jake back from the brink of meltdown. He's not at the point where he can release her completely, and right now he's not sure he'll _ever_ be, but he does straighten enough to look her in the eyes.

Somber, he asks, "Why were you looking at that, Sherry?"

It doesn't sit right with him, now that he's letting himself think about more than what he saw. They'd both passed out so soon, exhausted by everything that had happened in the last few days. Yet Sherry had been restless enough to get up in the middle of the night. And instead of waking him, or watching TV, or the _million_ other things she could have done to distract herself, she decided on _this_ instead. To watch herself be _tortured._

It doesn't make any sense. And if Jake's going to help her, he needs to understand _why._

For the first time tonight, something other than calm apathy crosses Sherry's face. She seems to find Jake's chest fascinating all of a sudden and her wings flutter nervously at her back, at her wrists. 

"I..." Her throat works. Her voice is very, very quiet. "I think there's something wrong with me," she says, achingly slow. 

There's a quiet note of fear in her voice that makes Jake want to make this all go away, bundle her up and back into bed. But ignoring this isn't an option. His palms slide from her waist to settle on her hips, thumbs dragging across the soft fabric of her shirt. 

"What do you mean?" He's careful to pitch his voice far from anything accusing—open, yet confused. He's heard her say similar things, but there's something about this particular phrasing that seems different.

Sherry shoots a furtive glance at him. Her hands slide away from his back to cross loosely in front of her, like she can't bear to touch him while she explains herself.

"...I couldn't sleep," she starts, voice nearly a mumble. She shifts, leaning on one leg, eyes glancing to some far corner of the room and staying there. "And...I kept thinking about your face when you saw the table." Just the mention of it makes the anger resurge. "I couldn't—I couldn't get it out of my head and..." She clams up again, brows furrowed. Jake doesn't interrupt her, lets her go at this at her own pace. 

One of her hands comes up, the back of her knuckles pressed to her lips as she struggles with something. Her eyes are bright with frustration.

"It's not like—" She cuts herself off; shakes her head and tries again. "I _hate_ the experiments," she says, insistent. "I always have. But today was...it was so different," she explains, eyes almost pleading as she looks up at Jake. "It was _—painless._ It's _never_ been like that..."

She loses her words again, lips pressed tight. Jake...has no idea where she's going with this. He rubs her upper arms when the silence stretches and she makes no further attempt to fill it.

 _"Okay..."_ he prompts. He slides his hands down her arms, lingers for a bit at her wrists and where her small wings are folded there, then threads their fingers together. "Still doesn't answer my question."

Sherry sighs, but the sound is shaky. She squeezes Jake's hands in hers and visibly steels herself. 

She looks Jake straight in the eyes. Opens her mouth. Says: "I miss it."

Shock robs Jake of any possible thought. The words replay over and over in his head and he stares blankly, waiting for them to make sense.

"...What?" It's all he can think to say.

Sherry—deflates. Her whole body seems to shrink in on itself, eyes firmly pointed away, and in the scant light, her eyelashes cast dark shadows on her cheeks.

"I haven't felt right, ever since we left the lab," she confesses, sounding wretched. "I just feel... _wrong,_ without the experiments. I...I thought watching some old footage would help, but it didn't..."

Jake has no idea what his face is doing, but Sherry takes one look at him and grimaces; he can practically _feel_ the wall that springs up between them as she steps away from his hold. Her face smooths of anything but stubborn dismissal and her wings pull in tight against her back.

"I _know_ how that sounds, okay? And I don't expect you to understand. But," she shrugs; helplessly, hopelessly. She rubs at her forehead, exhausted and miserable. "You wanted honestly," she finishes, voice a whisper. 

This night isn't pulling any punches, that's for sure. Jake hadn't thought things could get worse after seeing the woman he loves being tortured, but to hear from the horse's mouth that she's been so fucked over by this whole thing that she _misses_ it? He'd only _thought_ he knew what it was to feel his heart break.

It puts him in mind of two nights ago, of calling Sherry's name over and over before he finally decided to risk a punch to the face and opened the door. Seeing her in that tub, surrounded by blood, rivulets of it flowing down her arm, the thick globs of it that stuck to the once-pristine down of her feathers—it had all painted a picture that would haunt him until the end of his days.

But the thing that had horrified him the most? It had been Sherry herself. Her expression as she maimed herself, so completely and utterly blank, like she couldn't feel it, or she didn't care. The thought that had plagued him, hell, _still_ plagues him, is what she would have done if he hadn't barged in. Where would she have drawn the line? Did she have one at all?

And then _this._ Watching herself being tortured, in the hope that it would satisfy that need inside of her. It scares Jake, chills him to his core, to think of what she might have done tonight if he hadn't woken up—what she could have done, with him none the wiser because of her healing abilities.

Jake must spend more time than he notices lost in those awful, worst-case scenarios, because Sherry speaks up again, sounding more like herself—calm and determined and ready to move past it all.

"It's late," she observes, hands folding in front of her. "Let's just forget about this, all right?"

She sounds normal, sure, but the look on her face—ashamed and guilty—is anything but. It moves Jake to action, even if his mind is still trying to catch up to the last few minutes, torn between wanting to shield her from the world and going on a very specific killing spree. 

But the deep unhappiness and disquiet that practically radiates off Sherry—that has to go. Without a thought, Jake stretches out one large, black wing, and they're still standing close enough that it's not much of a reach at all.

Sherry's tiny gasp and wide eyes aren't a surprise, but they still make that flame of almost-angry determination in his chest burn brighter; one of these days, she's going to _get_ it, get that Jake _means_ it. He knows it's not personal, this belief she has that he's going to ditch her at the first sign of trouble, but he'll be so, _so_ glad when she accepts him, accepts _them._

The wait for that's gonna be excruciating, but it's easier to bear when Sherry hesitates, but nonetheless returns the gesture. The sight of her wings will never cease to amaze, to take his breath away as those beautiful wings arch towards him in graceful curves, brushing against his feathers like the divine kiss of some ethereal being. 

"Stop running away," Jake says, quiet and firm. "I'm not going anywhere, Sherry," and he holds her eyes, makes her face the fact that he's not bullshitting her. 

Sherry's eyes drop and find him again a half-dozen times, unsure and wary and still tinged with guilt. 

"You shouldn't have to deal with my issues," she insists, and Jake cracks a tiny smile.

"Hey," he scolds lightly, bumping her wing with his. "We're partners, right? They're _our_ issues," he corrects, and the answering smile he startles out of Sherry makes him believe they can do this. Somehow, they'll get through it, just like everything else before.

How did she put it? _No giving up. No matter the odds._

Yeah. Jake can handle that. 

"You're thinking about this wrong. I'm not expecting you to be perfect, Sherry, never have. And so what if you've got issues? It's not like I don't." Jake shrugs, smiles. He holds out his hand, palm up. "We're stronger together, right?"

Sherry stares at him like she's never seen him before. Her eyes fall to Jake's hand and, after a brief moment of indecision, she slips her hand into his, looking like she wants to argue the whole time. 

"I don't see how this is something we can fight," she mumbles, frowning, but at least willing to hear him out. "This isn't something we can shoot." Delicately, she shifts their hold so their fingers can thread together. "I could always schedule another appointment..." She murmurs thoughtfully, and Jake's grip on her tightens. 

_"Not happening,"_ he cuts her off brutally. He _refuses_ to entertain that idea, even as a hypothetical. If she tries it, she'll also have to accept the consequence of only seeing him behind the bars of a prison cell because he'll _definitely_ be arrested for ruthless manslaughter. 

Sherry makes a quiet, dissatisfied noise—almost a groan, but with more desperation. 

"Well, there's not a lot of options," she points out. "I mean..." Her voice falls to a much quieter level; that earlier shame appears. "I _want_ that pain. I feel wrong without it. I...don't see how to get around that."

Jake frowns. Sherry's unhappiness is incredibly intolerable to him, so he pulls her back to his chest, strokes her arm as he thinks. Sherry's arms wrap around him gently, as if she's afraid she'll hurt him. 

_She's afraid of herself._ She hasn't said it in so many words, but that's the crux of it, isn't it? 

_Look at me,_ she'd said, eyes a weird mixture of pragmatic and bleak. _I'm a monster._

"Punishment," he says quietly, and Sherry stills. "That's what you want." His heart breaks again, but he distances it from himself so he can focus on her. "You think you deserve it."

Sherry doesn't feel like she's even _breathing_ in his hold. After a long, painfully tense silence, her fingers tighten on the back of his shirt in a desperate cling. Against his chest, her head nods, the slightest of movements, but as effective as a scream in the silence.

Jake doesn't like hearing it confirmed, but he's never been one to shy away from what needs to be done.

"...Okay," he says, and he reaches up to stroke Sherry's head. His eyes stare straight ahead as unyielding determination falls over him, overrides everything but the desire to make Sherry feel better. "I can work with that."

"...What?"

Jake traces the soft curve of Sherry's jawline, looks down as he tilts her head up. Her blue eyes are so confused, but there's a weariness in them that persists, an echo of before, when she'd tried to warn Jake away the first time, insisting she wasn't worth the effort of pursuing. 

If Jake still had any reservations, that look would have decided him. 

He kisses Sherry because they both need it. It's sweet and slow, and his hand slides to her neck to hold her in place, thumb rubbing in a light caress against her pulse. There's hesitance in every move Sherry makes as she kisses him back, but he lives for the way she surrenders to him in inches, the slow increase of her weight against him, the warm brush of her palms as they come to rest on his chest. Nothing in his life has ever felt as good as Sherry in his arms, beautiful and perfect and crazy enough to want him back. There's not baggage fucked-up enough to stop him from doing whatever it takes to keep this. 

Sherry still seems unsure when they finally break apart, but she's miles from being as upset as she was before—try as she might to hide it. Jake looks into her eyes, thumb brushing across her cheek in absent tenderness.

"Promise me something."

Sherry's eyes search his, looking for some inkling of his intentions on his face. "...What?" she finally asks quietly.

"Next time you feel like this, you'll come to me." Sherry's brow furrows and her mouth opens, protest already blooming on her lips, but Jake interrupts, "Come to _me,_ Sherry," he insists, unable to stomach the alternative of her mutilating herself and then seeing him sometime after, fully healed and him none the wiser. "I'll take care of it."

 _I'll take care of you,_ he doesn't say, because he doesn't want to spook her, but it's what he's really saying.

Sherry's confusion deepens visibly in her frown and her narrowed eyes. "What does that mean?"

"It _means,"_ Jake stresses lightly, the hand on her hip squeezing just a bit, "I'll give you what you want—but in a safe way, so we don't have to worry about you going too far."

Jake knows the minute that clicks with her, because after a moment of blank staring, Sherry's eyes go wide and even in the scant light, he can see how her face goes red in a _furious_ blush. Her wings draw tight against her back. 

"You don't mean—?!"

Jake _grins._

Jake's no stranger to this sort of thing; that last mission wasn't his _first_ trip to Germany, after all. He's been to the clubs, seen the pride celebrations. Curious, he'd even explored the more popular red-light districts, but he hadn't lingered on the roleplay stuff. For all that it was kinky as shit, the amount of trust needed between the participants and the sheer vulnerability of it all had made his skin crawl. Even if you were the one in charge, there was a level of exposure involved that was inescapable. Mercenaries weren't the type of people to actively seek situations where they had to yield, in any capacity, and he was no exception.

But here and now, looking into Sherry's eyes, he's willing to give it a shot.

"Oh, I _mean,"_ he confirms, relishing Sherry's sudden shyness. His grin softens and he brushes his knuckles against her warm cheek. "We can start small," he assures her, "Just to try it out, see if it helps."

Sherry breaks eye contact and covers her face with her palms, apparently at her limit. The sight of it is horribly endearing and Jake chuckles, pulls her close again so he can drop an affectionate kiss to the top of her head.

"It's just an idea," Jake says, still smirking. "We don't have to do anything."

To his surprise, Sherry shakes her head. She drops her hands, hugs herself. Her eyes are anywhere but Jake.

"...No, it's—it's not a _bad_ idea..." Jake's eyes grow wide, "I've just...never done anything like that."

"...Yeah," Jake says, mouth dry, trying to calm the excited racing of his heart; he hadn't realized how much the idea of that would get to him until she'd agreed. "Me either," he continues. "Means we can learn together."

Sherry hesitantly looks back at him. Whatever she sees on his face must reassure her because, despite the fact that she's quick to avert her gaze again in embarrassment, there's a little smile on her lips, too.

"Yeah," she agrees softly. "I guess so."

When Jake holds out his hand, she takes it; sucks in a sharp breath and releases it with deliberate slowness when Jake steps closer and caresses the small wing at her wrist gently, fingers smoothing the feathers and lingering over the subtle curve of it tucked against her skin. He indulges in the sensation of her smooth feathers and her trust, before he tugs her back for another hug. 

Jake uses the reprieve to calm himself from the emotional whiplash of the entire night, to accept all of the messed up twists and turns of the conversation and focus on what he can do right here, right now, to make it better. Sherry's grounded by the hold, too, if the way she sinks against him says anything. When she finally feels completely relaxed, he speaks up. 

"So, you're open to the idea?" he ventures, just to be sure.

"...Yeah. Yes. I mean, if you think it'll help..."

His heart trips in his chest; he tells himself to keep it together.

"So...you want to give it a shot?"

Sherry jerks back to look up at him in shock. "What—right _now?!"_

Jake shrugs nonchalantly, feeling anything but. "I mean, you're still feeling shitty, right?"

Sherry's eyes dim with guilt. "I...do," she says, tone apologetic.

"Yeah. So...?"

Sherry stares up at him, blushing, but she should really know by now that Jake's a lot of things, but _shameless_ isn't one of them.  
  
She glances away, nervous. She licks her lips and her eyes fall to her broken laptop, expression darkening with something deeper than embarrassment, pained and tired.

Jake almost speaks up to call the whole thing off and suggest they go back to sleep, but then a familiar steel sweeps over her face—an expression that makes Jake feel a little more awake than he was before.

Sherry looks straight into his eyes. "Okay. Yes. Let's try it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ


End file.
